One of the most difficult things that a father can go through is to watch his child suffer from a merciless affliction. The one that met with my daughter and I was the disorder of bulimia nervosa. It was something that I was very familiar with. Having a wife who struggled for many years with a similar condition, I knew how relentless this disease could be. But now this demonic nightmare took on a new form and somehow inhabited the body of my 15 year old baby. After I did everything that I knew how to, little changed. It was then that my wife and I chose to pursue medical treatment.

One of the most heart-wrenching days of my life was when my little girl and I boarded a plane to admit her into a residential treatment center known as Avalon Hills in Utah. It would take too many words and pages to describe the heartache that I felt that day as I kissed her good-bye.

While we were parted, I'd write her each day, yet phone calls were only allowed once per week for ten minutes. It was about into the seventh week that I felt such strong sense that my God wasn't going to disappoint me - He was going to deliver my little girl from this cruel hellish affliction. I had been discouraged up to that point, but something happened unusual one early morning. The Lord deeply visited me with a clear vision that opened up like a scroll before my eyes. As I was witnessing this picture of events, I began to take notes and write. After about an hour, this poem that I've entitled Escaping Myself was birthed into existence.